Sunday: Maundy Thursday A
Reading: John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Preacher: S. James Steen

People tease me about my reactions to the Gospel According to John. It's true that it upsets me when in John I hear Jesus speak un-Jesus-like words, like "No one comes to the Father except through me." It isn't that, as a liberal post-modern Christian of the Third Millennium, I would be more comfortable if Jesus were quoted as saying, "I would like to invite you consider choosing me as your possible doorway to the God, but other means of egress are, of course, also acceptable." No, what concerns me is that when people read John from a literalist perspective, they can do terrible damage to others people in the name of Jesus."

And there's more. Not only does John tend to be exclusive, he also has a theology - properly speaking, a Christology - that raises the person and power of Jesus to a whole new level. In John, the ministry, the passion, and the resurrection of Jesus literally make all the difference in the world, and beyond. John begins with a Jesus who, far from being a special baby, born in a manger, is the all powerful earthly manifestation of the eternal.

He was with God from the beginning. He has always been and will always be with God. So, what he does on earth, and most especially what he is doing during this holiest of weeks, has cosmic consequences. That's the heart of John's proclamation, and that's why instead of uttering Mark's intensely human words from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?," in John, Jesus says simply, "It is finished." I have completed the drama of salvation that I came to carry out. It is finished.

So, while some of us may think that John is a bit over the top; and we may - and should - deplore the excesses of Christian chauvinism and anti-Semitism that have used John to justify themselves, there is another way to approach John. We should not fail to let this over-the-top Gospel challenge us when we are tempted to settle for a lukewarm, overly reserved, timid religion that domesticates the message of hope, a message we have the opportunity to dig into and experience down to our bones during these next three days. We should not fail to let this Gospel challenge us when we are tempted to yield to a skepticism that closes us to the wonder of mystery and the possibility of resurrection in our own lives. Those challenges are John's gifts to us.

My temptation to dismiss John has never been so challenged as it was when this week I read tonight's Gospel for the umpteenth time. We are gathered with Jesus and the Disciples in the Upper Room, where we have come together to celebrate Jesus' final gathering with his closest followers, the Last Supper. But wait. There is no Last Supper. Did John forget the Last Supper? I don't think so. He is far too intentional a dramatist to forget such a major event. Maybe the author of John didn't know about the Last Supper; but I hardly think so. By the time this Gospel was written the Eucharist had been central to the Church's life for decades.

What are we to make of this omission? I suspect that we ought not to look at what is missing so much as what is present: the simple, humble, radical act of servanthood, of hospitality, that this Jesus whom John views as the Lord of all Creation carries out: the washing of the Disciples feet by their master. In John, Jesus doesn't say, "This is my body; this is my blood; do this for the remembrance of me." Instead, he says, "This is my brother; this is my sister; serve them if you want to remember me."

By the time of John's writing, the Eucharist is well established. Rather than tell us how it started, what John does is to tell us what it means. Here the Savior of the world spends his last precious minutes, his last opportunity to impart wisdom to his closest followers, kneeling before them and washing their feet: smelly, dusty, tired, sore, callused feet. "As I have done this for you, so you are do this for one another." That's the best he can do and the best he can think of to say. It would be one thing if John considered this gathering just a respite from an otherwise arduous week; but for John every single event that we will experience during the next three days is an integral part of God's plan to save the world. Think of that!

So the message of this incongruous role-reversal that Jesus orchestrates in the upper room can only be that when we reach out in love to one another we are touching the very heart of God. The message of John's upper room drama can only be that this Eucharist, which we will celebrate in a little while tonight, finds meaning in the extent to which the Body of Christ, which we receive in our hands and take into our bodies, molds us into the living body of Christ, existing for the love of God's world.

Amen.